Edgerrin “the Edge” James is back in the NFL, after signing a one year deal with the Seattle Seahawks. I find it a bit surprising that it took this long for him to find a team that was in need of his services, but he found one where he will immediately compete for playing time with starter Julius Jones. James was fairly effective down the stretch for the Cardinals last season and should help the Seahawks running game quite a bit…although I bet Julius Jones isn’t too happy (and he is immediately a bit less appealing in your league’s draft.)

I am looking for some good input on how to draft this year in my fantasy league. My league is pretty regular, no idp, except that the QB earns 6 points for a touchdown. All the literature, podcasts, etc., only seem to offer advice on either the more traditional leagues or idp leagues. Any input on where to go for the info I am looking for would be much appreciated, ie mock drafts etc., and if you have any advice yourself that would also be great.

Matt, the leagues we participate in all reward six points for passing touchdowns, so you’re not too big of an exception. You’re comment gave me the idea for a post on basic strategy in the early rounds, so hopefully I can get it out this afternoon/night sometime (hopefully before your draft!) Stay tuned…

In the meantime, here is the draft results from the Yahoo! Family and Friends league, but that rewards four points for passing touchdowns. There is only a slight difference in the draft strategy though with six point passing touchdowns, which is that the top quarterbacks become a bit more important, but hopefully I’ll be able to elaborate in my upcoming post. Take a look at the results anyways just start getting a feel for what round players are going in and how long you can wait for a certain player you’re targeting.

Now that we’ve got two weeks of preseason stats, the leaderboard is starting to get a little more interesting and realistic from a fantasy football point of view. Historically, the third week has been where the starters play the longest, but here’s a glimpse (compliments of NFL.com) of the leaders after two games so far…

Falcons running back Michael Turner continued to look great in the preseason, rushing seven times for 65 yards and a score against the Rams. In non-PPR leagues, he’s a top three running back without a doubt.

Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel looked a heck of a lot better this weekend than he did in week one of the preseason, completing nine of fourteen passes for 99 yards and a touchdown to receiver Dwayne Bowe. I wouldn’t be comfortable with Cassel as the starter on my fantasy football team until he puts up a few more good performances though and even then, he’s still more likely to be a bye-week/injury fill-in. In terms of Bowe, you can forget all that talk of him being demoted to second string due to poor conditioning, as he’s clearly established himself as the best receiver on the team and makes a decent-WR1/great-WR2 going into the season.

Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo looked sharp, throwing for 192 yards on 18 of 24 attempts. Although he is still working on his chemistry with receiver Roy Williams, he still has Jason Witten and some other receivers to spread the ball to in the meantime.

In just two offensive series, veteran tight end Tony Gonzalez caught three passes for 32 yards and a touchdown from quarterback Matt Ryan. While there was talk that he was still trying to get the system down, this is a pretty good sign that by the time the season starts, Gonzo will be ready to pick up right where he left off last season…racking up the yards and touchdowns.